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Community Corner

Tisbury Connector Fails Again

Drivers will continue to negotiate Vineyard Haven's chronically congested intersection of Edgartown-Vineyard Haven and State Roads at Look Street as they have for generations: The bypass plan appears to be dead after two town meetings.

For the second time this year, supporters of a long-proposed connector road linking Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road to State Road failed at town meeting to poll the required supermajority required for a Proposition 2.5 override.

At Tuesday's special town meeting in the Tisbury School gym, 147 voters stood in favor of the $1.3 million borrowing article with 77 opposed.

"This is a very large step in the long-term planning of Vineyard Haven and of the Island as a whole," said Tony Peak, a member of the planning commission who lives on Andrews Road, near where the connector road would have been created using existing dirt roads.

Town resident James Tilton, opposing the article, called it "just robbing Peter to pay Paul," continuing:

"Building more of anything does not solve problems, it creates more problems."

To pass, the article needed a two-thirds majority: Just a couple more Yes votes would have carried the question. 

Had a simple majority been required, the connector — designed to bypass the chronically congested intersection of Edgartown-Vineyard Haven and State Roads at Look Street — would also have squeaked by at April's annual town meeting, when it tallied a 69-66 vote count.

Ballot-box polling that followed the April meeting showed 312 voters in favor of the connector with 236 against, emboldening the town's public works department to raise the question again.

With its second failure in 2013, the issue appears to be dead.

Did you support the connector road? Do you think it's a lost cause now? Tell us in the comments.

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